Page 25 - TINA Dergi Sayi 10

TINA

Maritime Archaeology Periodical

It is not exactly clear when and how it happened, but cultural stages of Classic Fikirtepe, Transition, Yarım-
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the Mesolithic Ağaçlı communities peacefully adapted burgaz 4, Yarımburgaz 3-2 and Toptepe (Fig. 13-15).
th
th
and merged with the migrant farmers, establishing sev- It is only at the turn of the 6 millennium to the 5 that a
eral villages on both sides of the Bosporus, such as Pen- uniform entity developed along the northern and eastern
dik, İç Erenköy, Ayamama, and Tuzla on coastal terrac- coasts of the Marmara, the so-called Toptepe culture. 21
es, or on undulating areas over estuaries, as at Fikirtepe. What is of importance is that the old geographic bound-
Considering the fact that these communities were still ary of the Ağaçlı group, separating the İstanbul region
fishers, there must have been several settlements like from the rest of Thrace and passing through Büyük Çek-
Yenikapı directly on the coast or on deltaic formations mece Lagoon, was sustained up to the end of the Yarım-
that were submerged by the rise of sea level. Here it is burgaz 2 period, c. 5100 BCE, as a strict political border.
worth noting that when the Neolithic farmers arrived, the This of course was not what we were expecting to find
level of the Marmara was still some 20 m. lower than it when we devised our research project. We anticipated at
is today (Fig. 5). What is of special interest is the con- the initial stage of our project, as noted previously, that
sequential socio-economic model that emerged from the we would find connections between the Fikirtepe culture
cultural adaptation of the Ağaçlı groups. The settlements and those of Bulgaria. However, we were truly startled
of this group consist of round and/or ovoid huts of wattle not to find one sherd of Fikirtepe or Yarımburgaz type to
and daub, some with semi-sunken floors, as exposed at the west of this line, anywhere in Thrace and particularly
Fikirtepe and at Yenikapı. It is of interest that at Pendik, at Aşağı Pınar; none of the Thracian pottery of the so-
the most extensively excavated site of this group where called Karanovo-Starçevo-Sesklo group found its way
over 50 round wattle and daub huts have been exposed, into İstanbul region. This boundary seems to disappear
there is at one end of the settlement a rectangular building only by the Toptepe stage, after the end of Yarımburgaz
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highly reminiscent of Ilıpınar architecture. On the other 2, c. 5100 BCE. It is also of interest to note that con-
hand, the pottery, polished and ground stone artefacts, sumption of marine sources was sustained through the
and the lithic assemblage, including bullet cores and the Yarımburgaz and Toptepe cultural stages, as evidenced
employment of pressure flaking, are identical to those by shell middens recovered at the site of Toptepe itself.
of the Ilıpınar group. Likewise, there are burials within Likewise, there was a considerable accumulation of dis-
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the settlement area, mostly below the floors. However, carded shells at Yarımburgaz between Layers 4 and 3.
at Yenikapı, together with simple inhumations, there are This all leads to the conclusion that the process of neo-
also cremated burials, which are not in the Anatolian tra- lithization was far more complex and multifarious than
dition. It is of significance to note that the acculturated we ever anticipated.
Ağaçlı groups developed a new, mixed model of subsis- the neolithic Of western marmara
tence. Although they had domestic animals and founder Simultaneous to the developments taking place on the
crops, a major part of the subsistence was still based on eastern side of the Marmara basin, and likely guided by
hunting, fishing, and mollusc collecting. The presence of the scouting pioneers, the first group of farmers arrived
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rather big fish and large fishing tools indicate that open on European soil at around 6600 BCE following the Ae-
sea fishing was taking place, along with the collection gean coast, as documented by the excavations at Uğurlu
of molluscs in shallow waters (Fig. 6,12). This all leads and at Hoca Çeşme. The Neolithic package these farm-
us to conclude that the Ağaçlı group merged peaceful- ers brought with them is notably different from that of
ly with the migrant farmers. While continuing to live in the Eastern Marmara, being very similar to those of the
their traditional huts and practice their traditional buri- İzmir region, as seen at sites such as Çukuriçi Höyük
al customs, they developed a mixed subsistence pattern and Ulucak. However, in spite of the similarities, what
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based on farmstead, hunting, fishing, and mollusc col- has been recovered at Hoca Çeşme also bears some
lecting. They adapted commodities and technologies that specific differences from that of the İzmir sites, such as
they did not have previously, like pottery, lithics, etc., the architectural remains of the earliest layer being round
without making any modifications. Differences between and highly reminiscent of those in Cyprus, in addition to
authentic farmers on the Anatolian side and acculturated the absence of bullet core technology and the extensive
Ağaçlı communities gradually diminished through the dependence on marine sources (Fig. 17-21).

18 ÖZDOĞAN 2014b, 2017.
19 BOESSNECK-VON DER DRIESH 1979; RÖHRS-HERRE 1961.
20 These have been extensively described in ÖZDOĞAN 2013a.
21 ÖZDOĞAN et al 1991.
22 MERİÇ et al 1988h; MERİÇ-ALGAN 2007; ÖZDOĞAN-KOYUNLU 1986
23 ÖZDOĞAN 1998, 2013a
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